The Development And Application Of Virtual Clinical Case Software In Surgical Nursing

Many medical colleges and universities face with a contradiction betweenthe shortage of clinical practice teaching resources and the ever increasing ofpractice teaching along with the continuous expansion of nursing education,leading to students can not have enough chance to contact the true patients and adecline of typical clinical symptoms and signs. The traditional teaching methodscannot satisfy the needs of clinical teaching anymore. The current demand innursing education field is to combine practices close to clinic. In this way,students can obtain perceptual knowledge and improve their learning effect bycontacting with typical cases in real clinical environments. Virtual realitytechnology has brought revolutionary impact on the nursing education. It hasbecome the beneficial complementarity and the alternative technology againsttraditional teaching mode. The use of virtual reality technology to provide avirtual teaching environment has become a innovative and practical approach ineducation, it is also the trend of the development of the clinical teaching.Part1THE DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF VIRTUALCLINICAL CASE SOFTWAREObjectiveThe objective of the research is to design the overall frame structure ofvirtual clinical cases software by collecting and integrating of resources oftypical surgical cases; develop “software used in clinical surgical nursingteaching”; show real clinical situation in teaching; provide students with asolution to the shortage of resources, particularly the lack of typical cases.MethodFirst, a virtual case library was set up by transcribing and integrating dataof selective typical cases including patients’ conditions, diagnosis, treatment and nursing after multimedia information of surgical clinical cases is collected.Second, the content, structure and interface layout of the software weredesigned and an interactive software data platform was established in the formof3DMax, flash and XML. Third, virtual cases were imported into the softwareand “the virtual clinical surgical nursing teaching software” was developed. Thesoftware was then tried by92nursing undergraduates of Grade2009, TaishanMedical University in the surgical nursing class, whose feedback was madeusing “Questionnaire for evaluating the application effect of the virtual clinicalteaching software”. Evaluation was made by17medical and nursing experts,education experts, using “Questionnaire for evaluating the development effectof the virtual clinical teaching software”. The final version was formed afterfurther improvement made according to the feedback from students andcomments made by experts.Results1. Six typical virtual cases were selected, whose information which wasintegrated and imported into the software is as follows:(1) female,54, breastcancer;(2) male,55, gastric cancer.(3) male,52years old, lung cancer.(4)male,66, bladder cancer;(5) male,60, craniocerebral trauma;(6) female,59,lumbar vertebral fracture.2. The virtual situation teaching software thus designed covers5wards:general surgery, thoracic surgery, urology, neurosurgery and orthopedic surgery.Teaching objectives and knowledge links, are presented in many interactiveways such as points, pictures, sound, and animation.3. The score given by students after using the software is8.29±1.27(10intotal), indicating that they are satisfied with it.4. The score given by clinical surgical and educational experts is3.13±0.07(3.5in total) after evaluating the software including its resources ofsurgical cases and knowledge structure of learning content, the design of theinterface, technology and the role in learning, showing their recognition thesoftware.ConclusionThe virtual clinical software thus developed is rich in typical cases andconforms with the surgical nursing teaching goal. It is effective for learning,stable in technical performance, reasonable in interface design, and simple for use. It creates the “authenticity” of a hospital, preliminary satisfying the needsof teaching.Part2THE APPLICATION OF SOFTWARE OF THEVIRTUAL CLINICAL CASES IN SURGICAL NURSINGObjectiveTo evaluate the effect of virtual clinical case software applied in SurgicalNursing, and to explore teaching methods and modes which adapt to thesoftware.MethodsUsing cluster sampling, selecting all160nursing students of2010inTaishan Medical College as subjects, then equally divided into the virtualclinical cases software teaching group (experimental group) and the traditionalteaching group (control group) in accordance with the natural class. Comparethe learning outcomes, self-learning ability and critical thinking skills betweentwo groups by knowledge quiz, self-learning ability scale and critical thinkingability scale. Self-made questionnaires were adopt to investigate the impact ofvirtual clinical cases software on students’ knowledge, emotions, skills andinformation literacy. Interviews were conducted with instructors and lecturesafter the experiment, and the advantages and disadvantages of the software forteaching were summerized.Results1. the results of knowledge test Compared with the control group, thepoints of experimental group were significantly high (P <0.05).2.The autonomous learning ability: After the virtual teaching, the totalscore of self-learning ability, as well as the scores of self-management skills,the information capacity and the ability to cooperate were higher, the differencewas statistically significant (P <0.05).3.Critical thinking skills: The total score of critical thinking ability and thedimensions of find the truth and systematic capacity were statistically higher inthe experimental group, the difference was significant (P <0.05).4. The students in experimental group have an overall favorable opinion ofthe software using in teaching, and give a good evaluation. 5. Teachers given the virtual clinical cases software good evaluation aswell, they believe the software were content-rich, have contributed to activeclass atmosphere, could provide real virtual situations, and expressed theirwillingness to use in future teaching.Conclusions1. The applications of virtual clinical teaching software could increasedstudent achievement, improved self-learning ability, enhanced critical thinkingskills and the ability to analyze and solve problems. This novel teaching methodis conducive to exert students’ principal action and teachers’ dominant role.2. The use of the software reduced the gap among nursing theory andclinical practice, promoted students’ understanding and mastery of surgicalknowledge, and met the teaching requirements.3. The software will be gradually improved through the practice of teachingin surgical nursing, having set up the foundation for application among othernursing courses..